Talking PointForced displacement of Czech population under Nazis in 1938 and 1943

Munich meeting in 1938
The transfer of the German-speaking minority from Czechoslovakia after the
end of the Second World War remains the topic of discussions between Czech
politicians and their counterparts and pressure groups in Germany and
Austria. It is also a subject of extensive historical research. Much less
is known about the mass exodus of the Czech population from the border
regions of Bohemia and Moravia, surrendered to Nazi Germany following the
Munich Agreement in 1938.

"How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is, that we should be digging
trenches and trying on gas masks here because of a quarrel in a faraway
country between people of whom we know nothing."

The words of the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, pronounced on
the radio ahead of the final round of talks with Hitler, Daladier and
Mussolini in Munich.

Sixty-five years ago, on September 29th, the leaders of Britain, France,
Germany and Italy met in Munich to sign an agreement which would have
lasting consequences not only for Czechoslovakia but also the whole of
Europe. Under the Munich Agreement, Czechoslovakia's German-speaking
border regions were sliced off and ceded to the Nazi Third Reich.
Overnight this had a huge impact on millions of Czechoslovak citizens.

Transfer of the German-speaking minority from Czechoslovakia
The process of the departure of the population from the frontier regions
actually began already in May 1938, after the first mobilisation, but it
became massive after October 1st when the German army entered the border
regions surrendered in accordance with the Munich Agreement. In the first
wave, the refugees fleeing inland were mostly people who feared
persecution because of their activities in Czechoslovakia before Munich,
among them Social Democrats, Communists, Jews and also antifascist Sudeten
Germans. In the second wave came government employees, followed by those
who simply did not wish to live in a foreign country and were uncertain
about what the future might hold for them. A Czechoslovak law from
February 1939 defined a refugee as anybody who left territory ceded to
Germany, Poland, or Hungary after May 20th, 1938 and was a Czechoslovak
citizen.

The refugees from the frontier regions quickly filled up towns and
villages in the interior of the country, often carrying a lot of freight.
At first, charitable organizations such as the Czechoslovak Red Cross and
regional youth organisations reacted to the humanitarian crisis. In some
places, district and municipal offices also helped. At the beginning of
October 1938, refugees were accommodated by relatives or friends and
sometimes even by complete strangers. Groups of fugitives stayed in
schools, guesthouses, old factory halls or warehouses. The number of
refugees steadily rose.

Six months after Munich, in March 1939, Nazi Germany occupied what
remained of Czechoslovakia. In September 1939, Hitler invaded Poland, and
Europe went to war.

The Municipal Museum in Sedlcany
Even less known than the post-Munich exodus from the border regions of
Bohemia and Moravia is the forced evacuation of Czech inhabitants from a
large area in central Bohemia which happened five years after Munich, in
the middle of the war. The Nazi occupants forcibly deported a large part
of the population from the town of Sedlcany and the surrounding area.
David Hroch is the director of the Municipal Museum in Sedlcany which put
up an exhibition commemorating the 60th anniversary of the deportation.

"The deportation of people from the Sedlcany district was a part of a
bigger plan of evacuation of a larger area, between the Vltava river on
one side and the town of Benesov on the other. The area stretched to
Sedlcany and up to Road number 18. The idea came from the occupants, from
their political top, on the assumption that Central Bohemia was part of
Germanic territory. They wanted to germanise the old Slavic territory,
seen as Germanic by the German side. The plan was just an idea in the
1930s but in the 1940s it was put into practice, really in 1943, after
Reichsprotektor Reinhard Heydrich came to office. The area was meant to be
a training and exercise ground and a rear for the SS units. The
deportation started in 1943 and they very cleverly managed it because they
used a bylaw issued by the Protectorate Government in line with an old
Czechoslovak law on military property. Like that it could be presented to
the public as something organised by the puppet Protectorate Government
and not by the Germans."

Which specific areas were most affected and was everybody forced to leave?

The Municipal Museum in Sedlcany"It affected mainly the town of Sedlcany itself, which had a little
over 2000 inhabitants, and then the surrounding villages - there were
several dozen of them. We can't say that the whole village was deported,
not everybody was forced to leave. It depended on the person's usefulness
for the Protectorate regime. So basically, farmers were needed to produce
food and manufacturers and craftsmen were vital too at that time. About a
third of the people stayed in the Sedlcany district but even those were
often made to move out of their houses or villages. Many farmers and
craftsmen were moved to different villages where the so-called "SS
Hoefe" or SS farms were founded where they were forced to work."

Similar to the exodus from the Sudetenland after the Munich agreement in
1938, many of the displaced from the Sedlcany district stayed with their
relatives and friends. David Hroch from the Sedlcany Municipal Museum.

"The question for the displaced was where to go. But their
compatriots were very helpful. The Czech population at that time had very
close family relations, especially within one region, so many people could
stay with their relatives. But nobody knew for how long. Already in 1943
when things started to look uncertain for the occupants, the displaced
felt it wasn't for good. In 1945 they gradually started returning home.
Because the area was turned into a training ground for the SS units, much
of the property was destroyed, many valuables disappeared and often people
returned to demolished homes."

The question of refugees from the occupied territories of Czechoslovakia
was, particularly in the autumn and winter months of 1938, a serious
logistic and economic problem for the Second Czechoslovak Republic.
According to the Institute for Refugee Assistance, the actual count of
refugees on March 1 1939 stood at almost 150,000. In the case of the
Sedlcany district, no concrete figures are available, but the number of
deportees was in the thousands.